Apache’s Last Battle (1964)

Whites and renegade Comanches are massacring white settlers and placing the bodies of dead Apaches at the scene to make it look like they were the attackers.

The reason: The cavalry is negotiating a peace treaty with the Apache tribe, and not everyone wants to see that come to fruition.

Among those objecting are land grabbers who would love to get their hands on the Apache land should hostilities break out. And vengeful army commanders like Capt. Bradley (Guy Madison), who lost his family in an Indian attack.

And so Winnetou (Pierre Brice) and old friend Shatterhand (Lex Barker) set out to prove to the cavalry that the Apaches weren’t responsible for the attacks. Of course, to prove that, they have to learn the identity of the real killers.

Those efforts are frustrated when a young eyewitness to one of the massacres is killed. And when Old Shatterhand is forced to hand over a confession signed by one of the outlaws to Bradley in exchange for Winnetou’s freedom.

When Winnetou’s adopted son Tujunga is taken prisoner by the cavalry and sentenced to hang, the normally peaceful Apache chief springs into action, deciding the only viable course of action is an attack on the nearby fort.

Review:

This was the third of the 11 Winnetou films made, the only one directed by Hugo Fregonese and one of only two scored by someone other than Martin Böttcher.

In a review on the Spaghetti Western Database, Simon Gelten explains that Horst Wendlandt produced the first two films; rival Artur Brauner produced this one.

But only under the condition that he come up with an original screenplay because Wendlandt had bought the rights to Karl May’s Winnetou novels.

So we have Winnetou with an adopted son he never had before, a casting change that’s never explained. We have a Winnetou who’s ready to launch war on the whites. And we have Shatterhand in the role of chief peacekeeper.

Fregonese serves up some memorable action scenes, including a large-scale attack on the fort and an avalanche that crashes down on a supply train.

But the plot might leave you a wee bit confused now and then, and that’s especially true in the case of the character played by Israeli actress Daliah Lavi.

In the English version of the film, she has three names, Amy Wilkins, Paloma and The White Dove. She’s a half-breed who lives in a scenic adobe mountain hideaway and has a strange past that’s never explained.

Old Shatterhand insists she move to a Western town for safety’s sake, though warning that it’s a big world out there and one that’s not necessarily kind. Then he leaves her in the care of a former friend, a female saloon owner he just happens to run into.

Huh? And, of course, the town and the saloon does not prove to be a safer place to stay, especially for her young male companion named Tommy.

Directed by:
Hugo Fregonese

Cast:
Lex Barker … Old Shatterhand
Guy Madison … Capt. Bradley
Pierre Brice … Winnetou
Daliah Lavi … Paloma, The White Dove, aka Amy Wilkins
Rik Battaglia … Dixon
Gustavo Rojo … Cpl. Bush
Ralf Wolter … Sam Hawkens
Kitty Mattern … Rosemary
Bill Ramsey … Timpe, piano player
Alain Tissier … Tujunga
Charles Fawcett … Gen. Taylor
Nikola Popovic … Sheriff Brandon
Mirko Ellis … Joe Barker
James Burke … Col. Hunter
Burschi Putzgruber … Tommy
Aleksander Djuric … Great Bear (Comanche chief)

Runtime: 122 min.

aka
Old Shatterhand
Battaglia di Fort Apache

Music: Riz Ortolani

Memorable lines:

Winnetou: “The sun rises and sets. The days come and go. The grass grows and dies. But the friendship between Old Shatterhand and Winnetou will last forever.”

Gang member Joe Barker of their boss: “He’s here.”
Gang leader Dixon: “How is he?”
Baker: “He’s got that strange look in his eye again.”

Woman on wagon train, admiring Old Shatterhand: “Your man is so handsome.”
Paloma: “My what? Oh, you like him?”
First woman: “Why yes. He is nice. Who is he?”
Paloma: “I wish I knew myself.”

Rosemary, to her other girls as she enters the saloon. “Girls, girls, the wagon train just got in. Now lower those necklines. And lock up your hearts.”

Rosemary, the saloon girl: “It’s the same old sad tale. He has only one love. And that’s a dream.”
Paloma (White Dove): “A dream?”
Rosemary: “One that he will follow the rest of his life. The dream that one man is as good as another.”

Tujunga: “They’re our enemies. Destroy them.”
Winnetou: “Tujunga speaks carelessly, with the fiery words of youth.”
Tujunga: “Those bandits are all our enemies. We must wipe out every one of them.”
Winnetou: “The future leader of the Apaches will one day learn that it is easy to kill. But killing does not always destroy one’s enemies.”

Tujunga after Joe Barker signs a confession about selling unshod horses to the Comanches: “We should have branded all he had written on his forehead!”

Capt. Bradley to Winnetou: “Now that’s the way I like to see an Indian. Stripped off all his weapons. Defenseless. Defenseless like my wife and two children were when scavenging redskins murdered them.”

Sam’s friend: “Sam, call Tujunga with that whistle of yours.”
Sam: “That’s a good idea. I called to him once, and that critter almost wanted to marry me.”

Trivia:

At 6-foot-4, Lex Barker got his big break playing Tarzan in five movies, starting in 1949. He was also married five times. Those wives included actresses Lana Turner and Arlene Dahl.

Raven-haired beauty Daliah Lavi, 25 when this movie was released, later headed to America in search of sex symbol status other European beauties had attained in Hollywood. Her last film was also a Western, 1971’s “Catlow.” Among her other featured roles, 1967’s “Casino Royale.” She later became a singing sensation in Germany.

This marked Madison’s first Western after leaving Hollywood and heading to Europe to make films and his only Winnetou outing. Normally the good guy — not to mention the star of the TV series Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok (1951-58) — he would play the villain again in the 1968 Spaghetti Western “Payment in Blood” (aka “Seven Winchesters for a Massacre”).

Simon Gelten also reports that Madison played two roles in the film. In addition to playing the villain, he donned buckskins and shoots plates with a bow and arrow in a bit part as Indian Dan. Indeed, viewers don’t get a good look at the face of Indian Dan; his back is to the camera for most of the scene. It comes during a shooting match in town that plays a key role in the plot.